The present invention relates to the field of cooling turbine components such as vanes or blades.
Gas turbine components such as vanes and blades, often in the form of airfoils, are cooled by passing pressurized cooling air through holes in the airfoils and then over the surfaces thereof. Clusters of cooling air holes (shower head holes) require accurate flow rate control so that cooling air is not wasted where the holes are too big or insufficient cooling air is supplied where the holes are too small, which could result in the ingestion of hot gas path air. Unfortunately, low cost methods for producing the holes such as laser drilling, generally yield poor flow rate control of the cooling air passed through the holes.